Exclusive online Stranglers PDF Issue two: June 2006 Issue two Page 2 Issue two In this issue… To The Manor Born 27 Issue two Joe Ordinair investigates Startling Studios June 2006 JJ Burnel: And the gods made love 28 Editorial Dom Pilgrim gets JJ Burnel’s take on the meninblack period Welcome to issue two of The Burning Up Space Oddity 35 Times, your free Stranglers PDF created by Writer John Robb is into UFOs and astral matter. Mine’s a stellar Stranglers fans. In Second Coming, we focus our attention on the ground-breaking ‘But, time was on our side?’ 37 fifth Stranglers album, The Gospel Mark Tall was unimpressed with the follow up album to The Raven According To The Meninblack – and what a journey it is! A spell in prison for Art of the cover 38 possession of Class A drugs, incarceration John Pasche, designer, gives a brief insight into the cover art in a French jail for inciting a crowd to riot, You have been informed 4 Dissecting Dave’s organs 39 disjointed recording sessions, 10 things to know about The Gospel According To The Meninblack Jamie Godwin checks out Greenfield’s gizmos, circa 1980 management litigation, assets frozen, UFOs and a spectacular flop in the charts! 1980-1981: Who Wants The World? 5 Boys on film 41 The band were on the verge of bankruptcy Not me! says Stephen Howard Stuart Bolton explores a soundtrack to a veneration and breaking – and Golden Brown was just Meeting Jet Black 7 MiB Transmission impossible 42 around the corner. What a period to have An invitation Gary Kent could not refuse Black Documentary production team reveal dark concerns been a Stranglers fan! Thank you to everyone who helped. Fancy a fortnight with The Stranglers? 11 Whoarethemeninblack? 43 Special thanks to: Chris Alderton did, and she’s here to tell the tale Andy Helgesen and Chris Balden explore the MiB phenomenon Chris Alderton, Adrian Andrews, I’ll get my occult 14 The real Gospel according to the MiB 45 Christopher Balden, Stephen Baker, Gary Kent gets backstage at Guildford Dom Pilgrim takes a look at the ancient history behind MiB lore Steve Beaumont, Aldo Bocca, Paul Begg , Gary Binnie, Stuart Bolton, Jean Jacques The Bold Testament 17 Being there… 47 Burnel, Steve Churchyard, John Cochrane, Gary Kent receives inside information from Hugh Cornwell Gary Kent relives the Lyceum 1980 gig Lol Cole, Gary Cook, Hugh Cornwell, Clark Who needs Hugh? 20 MiBs on tour! 49 Crass, Laurence Diana, Jim Drury, John No Hugh at the Rainbow, John Ellis was Lancaster, Liverpool, Cleethorpes and more tell the tale Ellis, David Fagence, Jamie Godwin, Ian Grant, John Hallsworth, Andy Helgesen, Ian Grant: Jean Genie 23 I was a teenage ‘dead body’ 50 Stephen Howard, Mitch K, Simon Kent, Gary Kent meets Mr Fix It Donald Mackay nearly dies at Edinburgh Playhouse Doug Kerr, Donald Mackay, Davey Essex Boy 24 Means to me! 52 McLaughlin, Keith Morris, Andrew Stranglers producer Steve Churchyard on making the Meninblack Aficionados pay their respects to the Meninblack Nicholson, Joe Ordinair, Karen Parfitt, John Pasche, Steve Pool, David Pritchard, Last Tango In Paris 25 Boots, boots, boots: the Meninblack era 54 Jamie Radley, Stephen Reid, John Robb, Meninblack engineer Laurence Diana ends up in Paris Icecube analyses the live bootlegs from the period David Scott, Barry Spooner, Mark Tall, Chris Twomey and X-File of SE1. The Italian Job 26 Mean Two-mey 59 Meninblack engineer Aldo Bocca is in a confessional mood Chris Twomey met Hugh in 1980, his life was never the same again... Please accept our apologies to anyone we have inadvertently left out. This issue is dedicated to Gary Cook, Burning Up Times is published when it’s ready. It is available free of charge from the website and you are free to distribute it to whoever you want. Issue two, Second RIP, Stranglers fan and Strangled PDF Coming, June 2006. Original material © Planet Earth, otherwise copyright is maintained by the original holders of material contained in this PDF. Editor: Gary Kent Production Editor: Dominic Pilgrim Webmaster: Ian Keiller Contact: [email protected] Website: www.strangled.co.uk contributor. Page 3 Issue one You have been informed 10 things you should know about The Gospel According To the Meninblack The Gospel According To The Just Like Nothing On Earth, perform-in-black on a hill in Meninblack is The Stranglers’ first Manna Machine and Turn, The the Kent countryside while a 1 concept album. It was also the first Centuries Turn were done in Man In Black prances about. album the band produced themselves. It London… as were Bear Cage, Manager Ian Grant, who played the was Jet who first chanced upon the UFO Vietnamerica and Who Wants The World? perambulating MiB recalls the days’ shoot: phenomenon of the Men In Black in – although they never actually made the “They gaffer-taped my hat down onto my January 1978’s Flying Saucer Review. The final track listing… head so my hair didn’t show – after all you band were writing Black And White at the can’t have a MiB with blond locks! It time. …Three singles precede the album’s nearly killed me trying to get it off release, but only Thrown Away gets afterwards. I was alright by the time we Dave teased fans in January 1981’s 7 on the album. Incidentally, did you got to the pub in the village, though!” Strangled magazine when he know Bear Cage was written 2 revealed he and Jet wrote Second during a sound check in France? Coming – with a 13/4 piece that didn’t Bien sur! make the final cut: “I’m saving that for another song.” And we all know what that On the original demo became, don’t we? Waltzinblack segues neatly Waltzinblack was originally mooted 8 into Second Coming. Just Meninblack bore two singles; to follow up Thrown Away. The Like Nothing On Earth sits Thrown Away, which made Number 4 redundant artwork featuring two between the two on the final 3 42, and Just Like Nothing On Earth dancing MiBs, turned up in Grip ‘89. vinyl. – the first Stranglers single not to trouble the UK Top 75 singles charts. Two Sunspots was first recorded at Also on the demo was an Eden Studios at the end of 1978 for instrumental called 5 a proposed January ‘79 single 9 Freezer. But then Hugh release, bridging the gap between Walk wrote lyrics for it, and it became On By and Live (X-Cert) LP. When the Manna Machine. Apart from the idea was shelved, the artwork was used for inclusion of vocals, the other 1980’s Who Wants The World?, and The difference was the bass drum was Stranglers IV IRS import LP. much more prominent in Freezer. Boom, boom. Recorded and mixed in Europe, January to August 1980: Thrown Talk about keeping it 6 Away and Second Coming were “in-house”….Who recorded in Germany. Waltzinblack, Four 10 Wants The World? Horsemen and Hallow To Our Men In was the first single the band France, Top Secret and Man In White, in produced themselves – and in the Italy and Waiting For The Meninblack, excellent promo clip, the band Page 4 Issue two Steve Howard revisits the period that spawned a monster... 1980-1981:Who Wants The World? ARS, RIOTS, prison hunger charter – Soviet occupied Afghanistan Soviet invasion of Afghanistan continues strikes... The Stranglers threatens both Iran and Pakistan and is a as the British Olympic Association defies W résumé? You’re not far off, stepping stone to possible control over the government and votes to go to the actually. While the band experience a much of the world’s oil supplies.” Moscow Olympics. spiralling chain of misfortune – perhaps We don’t need no education? In March ends in misery when 123 partly attributed to their fetish with UFOs Britain, concerns are voiced by both people are killed in a North Sea oil rig and Men In Black – planet Earth was also parents and teachers of children being collapse during gales. A massive wave behaving badly. encouraged to rebel in school because of breaks one of the supporting legs of It’s January 1980, and the new decade Pink Floyd’s Number 1 hit, Another Brick Phillips-owned Alexander Kielland kicks off with unrest in Britain’s steel in the Wall. By the end of the month, it platform, at the Ekofisk field 235 miles industry with workers staging their first was forgotten as the Pretenders topped east of Dundee, sending 208 people into strike in 50 years in support of a 20% pay the chart with Brass in Pocket. the sea. Some make it into lifeboats before rise. The dispute lasts 14 weeks before the Meanwhile, in a tiny pub venue in West the platform capsizes. Most of the dead Lever Inquiry recommends a 16% increase London, new Irish band U2 played to a are Norwegian. in return for an agreement on working half empty Moonlight Club. In April, there are more invasions. practices and productivity deals. In India, The Ska revival started at the tail end This time, it’s the Rubik’s Cube. Now we embassy siege in London. It ends when Indira Ghandi returns to power after three of 1979 gains serious momentum in know what we all did with our hands SAS commandos launch a daring rescue years in opposition and in Zimbabwe, February with the Specials’ at Number 1 before mobile phones. Shoppers can’t wait attempt, killing five Iranian gunmen and Robert Mugabe also takes control.